ON
THE MIDDLE EAST ESCALATORThis war is spreading fast

The
media is up in arms about the report of Lt. Gen. William
S Wallace, commander of our ground forces in Iraq, who
said:

"The
enemy we're fighting against is different from the one
we'd war-gamed against."

The
"cakewalk" has turned into a slog through
a sandstorm, as Americans wake up to what they've so
far bought into. No, it isn't like Gulf War I. This
is not a hit-and-run assault but a war of conquest:
and the occupation is going to be even uglier. However,
Gen. Wallace's remarks about having a different enemy
than the one they expected is true in another sense,
one that he may not be aware of as yet: Syria
and Iran are now in this administration's sights.

It
didn't take long for the war to escalate. Gee, it seems
like only last week (in fact, it was only last
week!) that I
wrote:

"The
seeds of the next conflict are being sown as the present
battle takes shape. Iran, which is reportedly developing
a nuclear capacity, is a logical candidate for phase
two of the neoconservative crusade to 'democratize'
the Middle East, but it doesn't stop there . The sheer
momentum of this military adventure will carry us
along to the next logical step: to Damascus, Teheran,
Beirut, and beyond."

Less
than 48 hours later, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
was accusing the Syrians of funneling aid to the Iraqis
and warning the Iranian-sponsored "Badr
Brigade"  funded by Teheran, but made up of
Iraqis  to stay out of Iraq.

I
have news for Rummy, just in case he doesn't already
know (which I doubt): they are already in southern Iraq,
where the Supreme
Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the
official name of the only Iraqi opposition group with
real forces on the ground inside the country, is strongest.

"Iran,
Libya and Syria should be stripped of weapons of mass
destruction after Iraq. 'These are irresponsible states,
which must be disarmed of weapons mass destruction,
and a successful American move in Iraq as a model will
make that easier to achieve.'"

With
Rummy on the warpath against Damascus and Teheran, how
long before both are targets of U.S. bombers? I give
it a few months, in the case of the former. As for Iran,
the "let's 'liberate' the Middle East" crowd
is hoping for a student-led upsurge to overthrow the
calcified and ideologically-spent Khomeini-ites, but
if that doesn't work out the U.S. will certainly be
well-placed to launch a major assault. American troops,
at that point, will ring the Iranian ayatollahs on every
side: to the north, in Uzbekistan
and the
other obscure 'stans; to the East, Afghanistan,
and to the West, occupied Iraq. The old one-two-three
punch should knock Teheran for a loop, but that is just
the mid-point of the War Party's ambitions .

Remember
the disgraced Richard Perle's Defense Policy Board briefing
featuring ex-LaRouchie
Laurent Murawiec  the one where, in a Power Point
presentation to Perle and the assembled worthies, Murawiec
declaimed:

"Iraq
is the tactical pivot

Saudi Arabia the strategic pivot

Egypt
the prize."

These
are the ultimate strategic objectives of the neoconservative
cabal that has seized power in Washington, in a de facto
coup d'etat: they openly discuss this "domino
theory" in which the Arabic despotisms are
supposed to fall, one by one, in rapid succession. Naturally,
the Arab "street" will welcome us as "liberators."

Like
hell they will.

In
the days leading up to the American assault on Iraq,
antiwar pundits were on the lookout for a "Gulf
of Tonkin" incident that would serve Rummy
and the gang as a viable pretext. But what the rapid
escalation of this war is showing is that the Iraq attack
was it. This is the pretext for a wider war,
one that started in Baghdad. We may wind up in Cairo
before we're through.

The
liberal media are carping about the length of this war
 all of ten days, as of this writing  and they are
shocked that the Iraqis have the temerity to fight back.
Nobody told them that  and so how could they know?
It's pathetic, really, and all this compiling
of optimistic quotes from various members of the
War Party, while it serves a useful purpose  discrediting
the bastards  is really beside the point. What we are
in for is an endless series of wars, one naturally developing
out of the previous conflict. Some day not too far in
the future, as U.S. troops march into Syria, or Iran,
or even Saudi Arabia, enterprising journalists will
be compiling quotes from administration officials denying
any plans to extend the war beyond Iraq's borders.

In
response to my recently published op
ed piece in USA Today, which pointed out
that the war is not in America's national interest 
and that Israel is the one and only beneficiary of this
war  ADL chairman Abe
Foxman penned the following missive that appeared,
I am told, in the letters column:

"Rather
than offer a cogent argument against a war with Iraq,
Justin Raimondo presents the age-old conspiracy scenario
of 'blame it on Israel' or blame it on the Jews."

Uh,
no, Mr. Foxman, I did not write "blame
it on Israel," although you adorn that phrase with
quotes – but fabricating citations is the least
of your crimes. What I wrote is this:

"Our
troops will be fighting a proxy war in Iraq, and beyond,
not to protect U.S. citizens from terrorist attacks,
but to make the world safe for Israel. When the dead
are buried, let the following be inscribed on their
tombstones: They died for Ariel Sharon."

They
died for Ariel Sharon  but don't blame the Israeli
Prime Minister for that. The President of these
United States wanted this war, and he must take the
full responsibility for it.

From
a made-up quote Foxman manages to smoothly segue into
saying that my position is to "blame it on the
Jews"  as if Israel, and the fictional collective
entity of "the Jews," are synonymous. But,
here, get the full flavor of Foxman's sh*t-flinging:

"Raimondo's
argument reflects an age-old predilection to point the
finger at Jews for nefarious plotting at world domination,
for pursuing their own interests to the detriment of
the rest of the world. Indeed, in Raimondo's twisted
view, President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary
of Defense Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Powell and National
Security Advisor Rice have no real problem with Iraq.
Indeed, these opinion-less leaders are only preparing
for war against Iraq because they have been directed
by their Israeli or Jewish masters to do so."

Foxman
ignores the reality that the overwhelming majority of
Israel's knee-jerk supporters in the U.S. are not Jews,
but fundamentalist Christians. As I have repeatedlypointedout
in pastcolumns,
the key determining factor in an American President's
shameless appeasement of Israel is not some "nefarious"
Jewish plot, but the Christian "dispensationalist"
theology of his
core constituency, as promulgated by Jerry Falwell
and Pat Robertson. According to the "born again"
Rapturists
who make up the Bushian base, after the "saved"
are carried up into Heaven in the Rapture, Israel will
become the "new dispensation," the replacement
of the Church as God's instrument on earth. This may
seem like an obscure theological point, but it is not
so to the millions of American Christians who believe
that the "end times" are virtually upon us
 and who have been politicized by their religious hysteria
and their ambitious preacher-leaders. Bush and his gang
want to get re-elected, they want to advance the interests
of their party, and they can't do either without the
fundies who are the core of their militant activist
wing.

Foxman
ends his letter without quite calling me an anti-Semite,
but he comes pretty damn close:

"As
in any democracy, tough questions that challenge the
decision to go to war, and the consequences and implications
stemming from such conflict, are legitimate. Yet Raimondo's
paper-thin thesis that U.S. foreign policy is dictated
by what is best for the State of Israel is nothing more
than fodder for conspiracy theorists and anti-Semites."

Come
off it, Mr. Foxman, and get real: Israel's amen
corner in the U.S. is a coalition of Christian and neoconservative
nutballs, in which Jews are a small minority. Without
Jews, there would in all likelihood be no antiwar movement
worth noticing  and there certainly would be no Antiwar.com.

I
have respect and great affection for the Jewish people.
My mentor and teacher, the late Murray
N. Rothbard, was Jewish  along with virtually every
major libertarian
theoretician
in modern times.
For this reason, the Foxman letter makes me so angry
that, for once, I can't even express the depth of my
resentment and outrage. What galls me is that this liar
has the nerve to sign off with "Sincerely"!

I
am ceaselessly attacked
by realanti-Semites
for not facing up to "the Jewish question"
 and now I am being smeared by the ADL (and
the extremist Jewish Defense League) for supposedly
providing "fodder for anti-Semites." That's
a pretty good indication I'm on the right track, as
far as I'm concerned.